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Review
A page-turning account Mason is refreshingly clear-eyedand angry. --Will Hutton, Guardian
What people need is a reliable guide to the financial crisis Meltdown is the book they are looking for. --John Gray, New Statesman
Excellent. Evening Standard 'A lucid and sharply polemical account.' --Oliver Kamm, The Times
What people need is a reliable guide to the financial crisis Meltdown is the book they are looking for. --John Gray, New Statesman
Excellent. Evening Standard 'A lucid and sharply polemical account.' --Oliver Kamm, The Times
Product Description
Meltdown is a gripping account of the financial collapse that destroyed the West's investment banks, brought the global economy to its knees, and undermined three decades of neoliberal orthodoxy. Covering the development of the crisis from the economic front line, Paul Mason explores the roots of the US and UK's financial hubris, documenting the real-world causes and consequences from the Ford factory, to Wall Street, to the City of London. In this fully updated new edition, he recounts how the credit crunch became a full-blown financial crisis, and explores the impact of this development on capitalist ideology and politics.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mason is BBC Newsnight's economics editor and one of the most cogent, far-thinking and incisive writers on business I've read. 'Meltdown' was written as the financial crisis unfolded, and it reads both as a cold eye on the fundamental flaws in the global capital markets and an on-the-spot report detailing the hot-blooded wrestling that has taken place in government offices and corporate boardrooms. The roots of the current crisis are complex, but it's disappointing that so many business writers (and business people) have collapsed into intellectual nihilism in response. It's not impossible to understand what structured investment vehicles are, and why they're affecting almost all of us in some way right now. Mason not only explains what went on, he also provides a view on what is going on, and what it might mean for the future of business, finance, workers, international relations and the world. This book is a rare example of business writing that combines clarity, sophistication and personal perspective, but it's also an invaluable hint of business issues to come. And - refreshingly - it's a delight to read: concise, personable, flowing. Highest common denominator writing.
27 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Paul Mason, the economics editor of BBC Newsnight, has written a powerful study of the crash. He surveys the financial meltdown, the decade that led to the disaster, and the life and death of neo-liberalism.
Gordon Brown told us in June 2007 that deregulating Britain's banks would be `the beginning of a new golden age'. The bankers lied that they took high risks so they deserved their high rewards. But they took the profits from industrial production and put them into finance, not back into industry: "the end result is that profits are funnelled from ordinary savers into the pockets of the rich."
The bankers created the credit bubbles in dotcom, housing and commodities. Speculators bought technologies, houses, oil, rice, wheat and soya, until all the bubbles burst, laying waste those parts of the real economy.
After the financial crisis, the governments bought the banks' debts as dearly as possible, so as not to penalise them, running up huge debts and printing money, to save the banks, whatever the cost to the economy. There are $10 trillions' worth of toxic loans, only $1 trillion of which has been written off so far.
The world's workforce has doubled since 1979 to three billion. This huge supply of labour has tilted the balance of power from labour towards capital. So now we need to fight smarter for higher wages, and for a different economy.
To do so, workers will have to reject what Mason calls the `low-level, non-ideological, anti-political culture' of the anti-globalisation movement. He points out, "In the same month that half a million American workers would lose their jobs, the main focus of the Non-Governmental Organisations leaflets was `Don't forget aid to Africa'." We should reject the NGOs' slogan `Think globally, act locally'. We have to act in our nation-states, in our national unions.
Mason observes, "Capitalism's tendency has been to expand the power of the market: to push for the maximum freedom for market forces and the destruction of all ties - family, clan, nation and class - not based on free exchange." So we have to save our nation and our class from destruction by the capitalist class.
Gordon Brown told us in June 2007 that deregulating Britain's banks would be `the beginning of a new golden age'. The bankers lied that they took high risks so they deserved their high rewards. But they took the profits from industrial production and put them into finance, not back into industry: "the end result is that profits are funnelled from ordinary savers into the pockets of the rich."
The bankers created the credit bubbles in dotcom, housing and commodities. Speculators bought technologies, houses, oil, rice, wheat and soya, until all the bubbles burst, laying waste those parts of the real economy.
After the financial crisis, the governments bought the banks' debts as dearly as possible, so as not to penalise them, running up huge debts and printing money, to save the banks, whatever the cost to the economy. There are $10 trillions' worth of toxic loans, only $1 trillion of which has been written off so far.
The world's workforce has doubled since 1979 to three billion. This huge supply of labour has tilted the balance of power from labour towards capital. So now we need to fight smarter for higher wages, and for a different economy.
To do so, workers will have to reject what Mason calls the `low-level, non-ideological, anti-political culture' of the anti-globalisation movement. He points out, "In the same month that half a million American workers would lose their jobs, the main focus of the Non-Governmental Organisations leaflets was `Don't forget aid to Africa'." We should reject the NGOs' slogan `Think globally, act locally'. We have to act in our nation-states, in our national unions.
Mason observes, "Capitalism's tendency has been to expand the power of the market: to push for the maximum freedom for market forces and the destruction of all ties - family, clan, nation and class - not based on free exchange." So we have to save our nation and our class from destruction by the capitalist class.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Meltdown gives a good journalistic account of the meltdown of the neo-liberal dream of continuing wealth unrelated to work and exposes the hypocrisy of the greedy and the weaknesses of the capitalsit system. It is written by soemone who has had access to neo-liberal decision makers as they melted and is worth reading.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Meltdown
Economics is difficult for most of us and so a book that clearly explains theories and stops in mid flow to interpret jargon into plain English is welcome. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Germinal
Excellent
Clear and easily digestible overview of the banking crisis from one of the few mainstream journalists worth listening to. Read more
Published 4 months ago by P. Duval
Shockingly ignorant book
Everytime there is a crisis, leftists try to seize the opportunity and put up a jolly good show, creating the next, bigger one. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Misesfollower
Deciphering the crunch.
Paul Mason is a brilliant journalist.His abilities with language and his talent for making the incredibly complex something even I can grasp, is invaluable. Read more
Published 8 months ago by stingyjane
Brilliantly written
This is the best book I have ever read on modern economics, its clarity, clear clear sightedness and birds eye view of the events of the financial crash are enlighting because Paul... Read more
Published 10 months ago by J. Maher
Predictable, but interesting in its way
The first thing to say is that Paul Mason has a history of being on the (fairly) hard left.
I have no idea what his current political persuasion is, but I think it's unlikely... Read more
I have no idea what his current political persuasion is, but I think it's unlikely... Read more
Published 13 months ago by MonsterMunch
CAPITALISM AS OPPOSED TO WHAT?
Paul Mason is the economics editor of the BBC's flagship Newsnight programme. He explicitly says that this is a journalist's account of the current, and still ongoing, world... Read more
Published 14 months ago by DAVID BRYSON
We're Still Melting Down
You might know Paul Mason as Newsnight's economics editor. If so, then the sound of his voice probably brings up mixed emotions for you: most of his appearances over the last few... Read more
Published 15 months ago by P Newall
A brilliant and easy to understand explanation of the global financial...
This book explains in simple terms (most of the time) how the Financial crisis happened, why it happened and names the people responsible for both making it happen and for allowing... Read more
Published 16 months ago by S. Moore
Swept Away
This is a superb piece of reportage and analysis. It must be the best single account of the economic travails of the world in the past few years and, equally important, looks... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Ian Millard
Listmania!
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